It was only a dream, Xander thought. He blinked against the sun coming through the bedroom windows. Then he rolled over, and the wound on his arm flared with white-hot pain. “Aaahhh!” David stirred under his covers. He turned to face Xander. “Hurt?” “No, I always wake up screaming.” He turned the clock radio toward him. 10:13. Yow. Dad must have asked Mom to let them sleep in. She was usually all over them if they weren’t up “before the sun got hot.” He said, “I thought I’d dreamed the whole thing, fighting a gladiator in the Roman Colosseum.” David shook his head. “It wasn’t a dream. I was there when you went . . . and when Dad brought you back.” Xander closed his eyes. Thinking about it made his stomach sour. All those bodies. His own close shave with death. Even the simple fact that life’s rules—especially the ones dealing with time and space, little things like these—were not carved in stone, as he had been taught. All of it made him feel disoriented, like a kite broken from its string, whipping around in the wind.
